What About Worldbuilding? #26

March… March… Yeah, I got nothing.

It’s March.

That’s it, that’s the intro. Happy 1 year anniversary of this isolationist hell.

Earth of Another Color

Okay, let’s venture of this dusty marble and into the wonders of the cosmos where, as luck would have it, there are other, dustier marbles just waiting for someone to set foot on them.

Go figure.

The Universe could do with a good once over, but… whatever.

You, dear author, find yourself among the stars, excited to craft new worlds (literally) to hop between and flesh out your story. Exciting, exhilarating stuff.

But, wait, what kind of worlds can you build? Are you simply tossing together Earths of another color? (Okay, we both knew I was going to shove the title into some part of the post, let’s collectively be glad I got it out of my system early.)

The Sky is Pink and the Oceans are Green

Hell, looking at the pictures of a sunset on Mars means anything is possible, it’s all to do with the atmosphere and the color of the system star. I won’t get too deep into that because I don’t have the attention span for it and this isn’t a lecture series on which light frequencies are absorbed by the atmosphere or whatever.

Suffice to say, different colors are great. If you want to have a planet that makes you feel like you’re on acid when you look up at the sky, do it. Go nuts.

Here’s what we’re talking about instead, what is the culture like on that planet?

The Settler’s Road

From my perspective, there are three paths. (There might be more, but that’s what I’ve got right now.)

The first is what we’ll call the Settler’s Road, wherein this new planet and culture are directly derived from an Earth culture, or an amalgamation of cultures, owing to the settlement of humankind among the stars. It’s all very romantic, there are oblique references to the world that was with little easter eggs for the discerning reader to pick up on.

Cool stuff, it worked in something like Firely pretty well. The places felt familiar and foreign at the same time, worked for Star Wars too.

Worked to an extent in Stargate as well, with the derivations of ancient people’s cultures into new planets. They’re immediately Earthlike, but alien at the same time. My favorite in terms of managing this well may have been the “Spirits” episode… but, at the same time… everyone spoke English which was funny. It was the 90s, they didn’t like subtitles. I get it.

I digress.

The vestment of Earth cultures and customs on foreign worlds can work in this context. You can have an approximation of Han China if you’d like, let technology progress and culture regress until you end up with a God-Emperor. That’s okay… Well, it’s not, but I wouldn’t get too upset about it.

The Native’s Road

Here we arrive at the thing that annoys the [insert expletive here] out of me.

Culture’s native to a planet (be it in Sci-Fi or Fantasy) essentially being carbon copies of some culture from our world. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure someone is annoyed by me saying what I said. Maybe you like to scoop up Rome and put it on another planet, change the name, colors, and motifs... Maybe doing that works for you, but unless you’re doing the whole humans-migrated-from-earth thing, I don’t see it working.

It would just seem a bit… silly, right? Not meaning to disparage you if you’ve done it, but two parallel cultures on different planets essentially becoming the same thing seems a bit convenient, no?

I’m looking at you as well, my fellow Fantasy geeks. We’re guilty of this too.

Now I understand the argument about how and why this happens because we really only have one Earth and its cultures as inspiration for our worldbuilding… so, it’s gonna happen. The key is to recognize when it does and try to make the appropriate changes to avoid a carbon copy.

Second World Spacefaring Civilizations

Okay, this is where things get weird and if you’re into this, well, we should chat about it. This is where a world you created then enters a space-age. It’s WEIRD.

I love it.

I love weird. That’s it, I just love when second-world stories abandon the medieval mindset and start to grow beyond their confines.

It’s weird and I love it.

Flash Fiction Winners

Unfortunately for all participants, I am again the sole winner.

This has nothing to do with the results simply not being available as of the time of this posting. Not at all. This is just the way it is.

I won.